Deschutes County Sheriff Shane Nelson told us Tuesday he is going to make public his office’s policies for ethics, use of force and jail operations.

It’s an important step for the sheriff’s office in increased transparency. The public should be able to know the goals and standards of the sheriff’s office. And the policies have not been made public before.

Nelson and Darryl Nakahira, the sheriff’s legal counsel, said the policies cover things such as the use of lethal force, driving policy and incidents with jail inmates. Some matters will likely be redacted, he said, such as inmate extraction when there are jail disturbances.

“You want to be as transparent as you can be without getting in your own way,” Nelson said.

In the past, we’ve criticized that some of the policies have been kept secret. For instance, the state standards used in inspections of the Deschutes County Jail are not available to the public. They are owned by the Oregon State Sheriffs’ Association. The sheriff’s office also has its own standards for jail operations based, in part, on those state standards.

Both sets of standards have been unavailable to the public. That has made it difficult for the public to know if the standards are appropriate or not.

This secrecy became an issue in the death of Edwin Burl Mays in the jail on Dec. 14, 2014. He died from an overdose of methamphetamine. A surveillance video showed jail personnel joking about his behavior and watching a football game. Paramedics declared Mays dead after hours of unusual behavior. Were jail standards and policies violated or not?

By the way, the sheriff’s office has said the television has been removed from the booking area.

Nelson’s action will not make the sheriffs’ association records public. He doesn’t have the authority to do that. But he can make his jail’s and other policies public. It’s the right thing to do. We’ll have to wait and evaluate how much is redacted.

The policies should be online on the sheriff’s office website by the end of this year.